tempest

i'm an idiot.

i torqued down the nut on the upper mount on the both rears a little too much. at the time i though it was fine - i even disassembled it to make sure.

i guess the short test drive was enough to put the threads over the edge. i discovered this today when i removed the rears to apply some grease.

the threads on both shafts - chowed. one nut came off and the threads were rounded, the other nut just did not come off. ended up breaking the tip of the shaft in trying to get it off.

one might be salvageable with a good die, but the other one is toast.

the sunny side of the story is that the fronts were fine. so now i've got a mongrel setup with the QA1's in front and the old Bilsteins in back.

tomorrow i'm going to call Summit and QA1 to figure out my options....

if anyone has any suggestions that would be great.

JrRifleCoach

Based on the lack of info on your profile...........

Where do you live? There are faster means of repairing these rather than going through Summit.

tempest

JRC, i'm in the Detroit area.

Summit's Ohio store is about 3 hours drive from here. kinda nice since i get next day shipments from them by default.

i just checked QA1's website and it looks like they have "authorized" rebuilders. i hope they have one around here.

JrRifleCoach

Hey homie...

There are a few authorized rebuilders, one is in Sacramento that I've visited. Great guy and always willing to help out. Let me know if your resources can't get the job done.

tempest

thanks dude.

i'll see what i can find nearby. if i come up empty i will certainly contact you. i appreciate the offer to help.

fortunately the next autocross is three weeks away...

tempest

here's an update:

i called Summit first - because it was installation damage, they did not volunteer an exchange, but they did offer me a 10% discount. fair enough, but no thanks.

i called QA1, and they gave me a couple of race shops in the midwest that service their products. i eventually picked one that is run by someone who used to work at QA1.

the damage? $35 labor and $20 parts for each. not cheap, but not a ripoff either (if you figure $70/hr labor). sent the shocks today, hope to have them back in a week or so.

here's an interesting tidbit - QA1 does not do any repair or non-warranty work themselves. they will refer you to their "preferred" shops. QA1's shop is dedicated to warranty work only.

live and learn. and what i learned this time is to not always follow the shop manual to the letter, especially with aftermarket parts. the torque spec for the nut on the rear upper mount (the one that screws onto the bushings) was 19 ft-lb. i thought, hey, the diameter of both threaded shafts are the same, then the torque spec must be the same. well, it did not occur to me that the thread pitch of the QA1's were finer, so i should've backed off on the torque.

the shop i sent my shocks to suggested adding 3-4 turns on the nut after it hits the bushing. the bushings don't need to be cranked down, but they do need some preload.

AORoads

that is terrible news, but fortunately, not unfixable. and at an almost reasonable price, too! glad to hear it.

but a question: so, if not 19 ft. lbs., besides "3-4 turns", did anyone give you a setting per se? what does that equal, 10 ft. lbs, less, more? in a way, it kinda reminds me of what oil filters used to say, tighten until hand tight, then another quarter to half turn. sort of.

hope the follow on install goes well for you!

froggy47

That sucks, sorry to hear.

I usually do shocks using the tighten till the bushing bulges a little, may one drop of ez loctite or I double nut if it's possible.

Because the shocks are not high pressure, they are actually supposed to be "owner" rebuildable.

I'm not sure if I would or not. Worst that could happen is you have to ship all the bits to an authorized repair shop I suppose.